Introduction: Recently I was reading a biography about a catholic saint, whose impeccable life culminated in an "heroic foolishness". His life would have been like any other holyman but for the climax of his life. His act of foolishness ( according to the world) was that he CHOSE to die for someone else. Its because of his death that he is remembered now. I guess it happens even now.
In a jewish concentration camp a nazi commander chooses 10 men to die - die starving in a dark room. One among them is a man, who weeps for his family. Suddenly from among the rows of inmates comes a voice "commander, would you let him free if I take his place"
commander is intrgigued "why would you do such a thing"
The man replied "He has a family, I am priest. Also he is healthy, he can do more work than me"
The commander approved the swap. The family man went to live another 55years. The priest who died is now known as St. Maximillion Kolbe. Can you think of any more foolish forms of heroism than dying for someone else, when one could keep quiet & save his life? I realised from his life - "unless we die to ourselves, we cant die for someone else"
Many soldiers die at the border, but those who die trying to save someone else always stand out. We recently had Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, doing the same brave act - choosing death in order to save an injured colleague. "do not come up, I will handle them". His engaging terrorists did help evacuation of injured soldier, but cost him his life. This movie is also about dying for someone - an aam aadmi father dies for the sake of his aam aadmi son! ;-)
Why I watched this movie: like with any other names, I also watch movie names - to check how much it was suiting to the story. So when I saw a TV listing in paper for a movie titled ’Kaarunyam’ [Compassion] I wondered how can a movie portray an abstract like compassion. Also not having any hint on story, cast, crew etc made me curious.
Story: The movie is set in a aam family in the aam kerala village. Murali plays teacher in local school with Nedumudi Venu as the headmaster. Murali’s family includes his unemployed son ( hero of the movie, Jayaram), aam aurat housewife, an ailing daughter. Jayaram tries million for job but doesnt get any. story takes a turn when he has to marry his love interest ( daughter of rich man in village) suddenly. The girls father disowns her. Jayaram is now not only unemployed, but also a husband! There is difficulty of all sorts in the family. soon Mother in the house dies. Murali begins to feel alone. Finally murali dies ensuring a better future for his son.
What I liked:1) The story – which is set in country side. Even the camera captures the scenes, sights, settings of a typical kerala village.As long as I watched I was a resident of the village. The way characters are introduced, sketched, etched is brilliant. The way story begins on some lighter notes & slowly grows serious also helped me keep glued to screen.
2)Great acting: Each actor did more than justice to the roles, they lived the roles. Murali as a helpless school teacher, bearing the burden of whole family is the star of the film. He is a man who doesn’t say how to say I love you. Typical of keralite men who are not know to be good at showing emotions. This is murali’s fav performance of mine. His scenes with son jayaram are soul touching. Then jayaram as the helpless son, his inferiorities are all acted out. All other roles did great justice to their roles. One scene I liked was, the one which showed the grey side of the hero. Usually we are used to seeing hero is all good, villain is all bad. But in this movie, the director thru one scene showed, given a chance hero can also think evil – to me I think that scene set this apart from all other movies. The sheer intensity shown by main actors is what made the movie good, next only to script.
3)dialogues & music : considering the character themselves are keralites – hiding emotions, the dialogues had to be excellent to convey wats in heart. Very touching dialogues in the whole movie all the while not lacking humorous ones typical of jayaram movie. Songs were few & fitted the story well. I liked the one sad song “marakkumo neeyente mounagaanam” which is picturised to convey the sadness shared by characters.
Message: This is 1997 movie, so I didn’t have a chance to watch promos, interviews etc, so not sure if the director wanted to convey a message. For the aam viewer it does have a message about love – the self-sacrificing love. Usually a lot is talked about about the love of the mother, in movies, dilogs, real life, media, MS reviews, DPs everywhere. Rarely do we see fathers love getting coverage, this movie highlighted love of a father, who didn’t know how to say I love you. I found many scenes I could related to in my life & in lives of people I know. This to me is a love story – of the love a father has for his son. Also as a christian I have read much on ’God as the Father’ & ’Father’s love’, this movie had many such teachings in its story line esp the forgiving love & self sacrificing love, as summarised in that epic verse from bible "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life"
As I watched the movie non-stop till the end, I was reminded of a line in bible said by Jesus “Truly Truly I tell you, There is no greater love than this, that a man lays down his life for his friend”. If after watching the movie for 2hrs 30mins, I am reminded of a good sentence like this, I will call this a good movie.
P.S.: I came back on MS after a weekend to realise 21 june was ’father’s day’. I got to read many DPs by fathers and on fathers. Thats how I was reminded of this movie, so quickly cooked up this revu.